Where is Flo?

By Mac Shadix

Used with permission of the Buffalo Press

Flo is now online, or at least The Flo News is online. You can see the photographs in color, check an older column, or show a friend or neighbor who does not have a subscription a column or story that takes your fancy. There is information on how to subscribe for those who are not now getting the paper. The address online is;

Theflonewsonline.blogspot.com

The heart of Flo must be the crossroads whose sign is in the column head above. That is the intersection of FM 831 and FM1511 and that is the reason for the unique address for The Flo News.

The Flo News at FM 831 &,

Post Office Box 1511

Buffalo, TX 75831.

Someone asked why I was including all of precinct 2 in my definition of Flo and I had to think about it. There are good people from Flo and who love Flo scattered about the globe now. Mark Taylor who wrote “Reflections From the Flo Crossroads”, and “Hideout in the Flo Canebrake” lives in Colorado now, but I would certainly consider him and “ole Flo boy”, as I have heard him put it. Leon Moore who lived and worked in the Metroplex for many years certainly held Flo and his Bar Running M Ranch in his heart all those years. I would like to hear the stories of many others who have ranged the world, but kept their Flo connections.

Jake Stephens who was in those short films made in Flo that still are shown on the Houston PBS station from time to time goes to school in Oakwood where he is a basketball standout, and that makes Oakwood a part of Flo. Tom Nolan, who writes a column in this paper and lives only about four miles from the crossroads goes to North Creek Church, but he is a resident of Flo.

Every year when we hold the Halloween festival, the Flo Turkey Shoot, and the Christmas Party, we want and welcome the involvement of our friends and neighbors from wherever they may live.

Even the Flo Community Water Supply Corporation was over on Highway 79 for many years before coming back to its new home on FM1511 just a hop, skip and a jump from the crossroads.

Sonny Lathrop and Vernon Pate were at the scene at Randy Pate’s pasture on the Star Route near his house on Saturday at noon when a young woman resident of Flo had to be airlifted to East Texas Medical Center in Tyler with injuries suffered in a four wheeler accident. It turned out that her injuries were not as serious as feared. Her name is being withheld at the request of her family. The Flo VFD siren started up, and then you could see the helicopter circling just down the Star Route. Those four wheelers can be a barrel of fun, and very useful, but they are as dangerous as a rattlesnake folks, and everyone should be careful on them.

Doctor Douglas Moore, Superintendent of Oakwood schools had a birthday on Friday. He joked about his age and said that he didn’t feel a day over 100.

Flo Water General Manager Jim Martin called and I went over to the Highway 75 well as a crew from Smith Pump Co. in Waco was pulling the lining from that well. They intend to lower a camera into the well this week, Martin said, to inspect it and see if they can come up with a way to staunch the infusion of red, iron bearing water that is swamping the filtration system that has been installed at that well.

My Grandfather said……….

This country was a paradise during the early days of settlement here according to descriptions that J.L. (Jack) Moore told his children. He said that he could ride all day with grass brushing his feet in the stirrups. The creek channels were deep and the creeks didn’t flood like they do today. There was plenty of wild food and there were few insects that kept things from growing. There were nuts, and several kinds of grapes including; Fox grapes, Mustang, Muskiedine, and possum grapes, and wild plums. Hickory nuts and Black walnuts were growing wild here and there were Pecans in the river bottom and in some of the creeks. There were Huckleberries, Blackberries, dewberries, Mayberries, Mulberries and early and late persimmons growing wild and something bearing fruit in each season.

There was game of all kinds that was plentiful and pretty easy to kill or trap. Deer and turkey and duck were abundant, as were passenger pigeons. In the early years there were buffalo on the plains just to the west. There were alligator and beaver in the ponds and creeks and gator drags across the land where they moved from one to another. Most of the houses were built close to springs where water was safe and abundant. There wasn’t any underbrush in this country and you could see a cow as far away as the lay of the land allowed. This was bunch grass country, blue stem, and some of the hard surface glades were in carpet grass. The bunch grass would stay green through the winter and the cattle could do pretty well on it. Horses didn’t have to be fed grain to do pretty well. A man could just drive a wagon through the woods without having to cut a road.